Developments in the politics and economics of climate change

The International Energy Agency says In order to achieve net zero by 2050, the world will have to triple its renewable energy capacity by 2030 and triple its annual green investments. The IEA Executive Director, climate fanatic Fatih Birol said, "Governments need to separate climate from geopolitics, given the scale of the challenge at hand."

Tilak Doshi reports green growth, growth industry adjusting to intermittent energy, remains a goal of governments, with the ill-named US Inflation Reduction Act and the EU’s Green Deal respectively tipping in $369 billion and $270 billion into its pursuit. Its impossibility is being recognised by “Church of Green” insiders who now favour “de-growth”.

The European Commission has said power grid investments of €584 billion per year are needed until 2030 to meet green goals and the money does not appear to be available. Former UK PM, Gordon Brown, has a characteristically crackpot idea on where to get the money: a $25bn global windfall levy on oil and gas profits, paid by the richest petrostates.

Anti-green, “right wing” parties are ascendant in the Netherlands, Italy and Poland. Francis Menton and the Daily Mail observe, the UK is moving away from net zero to which PM Rishi Sunak gives lip service. Sunak released off-shore oil exploration leases, announced additional airports (with unrealistic talk of developing “alternative aviation fuels”), scrapped plans to force landlords to upgrade insulation and put back the phase-out of petrol/diesel cars. The PM has also disbanded the green-oriented energy efficiency taskforce. Bloomberg reports some of the world’s biggest green investors are in “deep shock” at Sunak's policy change.

King Charles’s address to the French Senate was, however, out of sinc with this pocy reversal. He declared global warming 'our most existential challenge' and proposed a France-UK Pact to Combat the Climate 'Emergency'.

Donald Trump however praised Sunak’s net zero U-turn, describing fears over climate change as a "scam". Trump also called for “complete and total” repeal of Biden’s EV mandate.

Predictably the Biden Administration is unimpressed. The Interior Department cancelled seven oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and will limit development on 13 million acres in the state’s National Petroleum Reserve. “President Biden is delivering on the most ambitious climate and conservation agenda in history,” Secretary Deb Haaland boasted. She points to “insufficient analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act, and has written new requirements into NEPA to scotch fossil-fuel projects.

California passed a bill to require companies to disclose climate-related risks. The rules will take effect over the next several years. The US federal government is following suit as is the EU. Climate activists want the disclosures to pressure firms to reduce and raise the cost of capital for firms that don’t comply. Industry groups are most concerned about costs of determining Scope 3 emissions, which are produced by suppliers and customers. 

Robert Bryce estimates the subsidy rates for different power sources

But the US green tax credit subsidies under the “Inflation Reduction Act”, though they can offset 50% of a project’s costs, are, according to renewable developers, insufficient to make their projects economically feasible. At the same time, Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Mark Christie said “the United States is heading for a reliability crisis” caused by too much wind and solar and too little coal and gas.

“We have a climate crisis. It should be a source of urgency for countries actually to try and solve it,” said Biden spokesman Jake Sullivan. But it is apparently not sufficiently acute for the US to cease denying China advanced computer chips to help redress it.

From 2024, Germany is to phase out of oil and gas boilers which presently cover 80 per cent of home heating. Its Energy Efficiency Act would regulate energy in public buildings, industry, and data centres aiming to reduce energy consumption by 26.5% by 2030 compared to 2008. The German government is having a re-think with Finance Minister, Christian Lindner, calling for a slowdown in the green measures, a sentiment echoed by French President Macron. Meanwhile amidst assurances that they are advancing faster to net zero, the government is dismantling 8 wind turbines to allow an expansion of brown coal mining. The Opposition Christian Democrats now call Germany “the sick man of the world”. Public opinion on climate action in Germany is highly polarised, with a large part of society (56%) wishing for more climate action and around a quarter (24%) denying human-caused climate change.

The head of BMW says that net zero will destroy European car manufacturing. The average price of an electric car in China was under €32,000 last year, compared to €56,000 in Europe.

Following the US/EU line, Australian government ministers and the departments they control are hyping up the costs of warming to agricultural production. Energy Minister Chris Bowen claims that replacing coal with nuclear would cost $387b. But replacing coal with wind/solar would cost $1,500 billion and perhaps $5,000 billion. Replacing coal with new coal would cost under $100 billion.

Indonesian financial regulators indicated they were considering how to place new coal-fired power plants in the country’s green taxonomy. The Just Energy Transition Partnership agreement had power sector greenhouse gas emissions peaking at 290 million tonnes. This is to be increased by a third to allow 34,000 MW new coal plants (50 per cent more than Australia’s current capacity).

India, China and Saudi Arabia have opposed a proposal by western countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2035.They are emphasising growth and improvement on their peoples comforts. African leaders though are seeking a global carbon tax – with its revenues to be equitably reassigned!

Developments in the science of climate change

A major new study involving 37 scientists from 18 countries has concluded that global temperature estimates since 1850 have been heavily contaminated by the growth of urban heat where the thermometers are sited. UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims that urban heat accounts for less than 10% of recorded global warming, but the scientists found that figure is nearer 40%. They observe that a rural-and-urban blend of temperatures indicates a long-term warming trend of 0.89°C per century, while a rural-only collection shows only a rise of 0.55°C.

Climate alarmists point to the recent catastrophic downpours of rain and the extreme wildfires as evidence of 'climate breakdown.' Friends of Science Society puts the more likely reason for the huge rainfalls recently seen in the US, Greece and Libya as being the result of the Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption of Jan. 14, 2022. This, with an estimated 110 Mt in TNT equivalent, was equal to twice the largest nuclear explosion ever.

Tornadoes in the US are said to be bringing increased damage. But here are the facts

Whimsey 

Today’s prize for grant entrepreneurship. Columbia University scientists say global warming is causing rising drug and alcohol abuse - because 'sunnier days encourage day drinking'.

In Inside Climate News an activist with the UN linked International Institute of Environment and Development describes climate justice as “a logical extension of advocacy for sexual and gender rights” to bring about a safe and sustainable future for all. The article breathlessly continues, “And yet, climate justice and queer experience are rarely explored together!”

Showing how to both wound the economy and waste money, Australia’s Treasurer committed $10 million to develop apprenticeships in net zero emissions, and digitisation.

France outlined €7 billion for the green transition next year but has failed to meet its targets because – surprise, surprise - forests and soils are absorbing less greenhouse gas than expected.

And now the latest research from Italy’s University of Padova shows this horrendous possibility, “Climate change could wipe out Prosecco and other popular European wines.”

Articles related to climate change - August 2023

Labor in office: time to take stock
The Spectator,  28 September 2023

Unexpected costs
The Spectator,  17 September 2023

The RBA’s Cock and Bullock Climate Myth  
Quadrant Online, 8 September 2023